Business leaders, OIA still at loggerheads

It was a two-hour breakfast meeting that did not really accomplish anything. Business leaders and Office of Insular Affairs Director Danny Aranza disagreed on the basic issue at hand — Washington’s move to federalize labor and immigration.

With the threat of a federal takeover hovering above their heads, the Northern Marianas will not be able to entice new investors and current businesses will hold off expansion plans, said Lynn Knight, vice president of the Saipan Chamber of Commerce.

“We told him that businesses are dying and that the U.S. government’s policy is not helping us at all,” said Ron Sablan, president of the Hotel Association of Northern Mariana Islands.

Prospective investors who inquire at the Chamber office frequently ask when the federal takeover issue would finally end whenever they look at the possibility of setting up businesses in the CNMI.

As long as the federal takeover is there, the investment climate in the CNMI will remain gloomy, said Sablan.

Unfortunately, there is no way the U.S. government’s policy toward the CNMI would change. In fact, Aranza said OIA will not try to convince Washington to change that amid opposition from both the government and private sectors on the island.

Asked during the meeting if the OIA or the Interior will no longer issue negative statements on the CNMI, again Aranza could not make any guarantee.

“Nobody could ever guarantee that,” said Knight. However, the Northern Marianas will find it hard to recover from the negative publicities created by OIA and Interior officials, she added.

“We spent millions of dollars to develop a positive image for the island and we won’t be able to undo damage overnight. Our chances of promoting positively have been greatly reduced by what was done by the Interior,” said Knight.

When he guested on a local television show here, Aranza said the image problem of the CNMI is actually self-inflicted. But Knight vehemently disagreed.

She told Aranza: I’ve been in public relations for 19 years and I totally disagree with that. I have copies of press releases of DOI which created a bad image for us and showed that these were not self-inflicted. Why would the U.S. media look at a place that is 6,000 miles away from the mainland just to write stories unless someone told them,” she said.

The U.S. House Resources Committee is investigating OIA and Interior officials for possible unlawful activities using the CNMI issues as a weapon against the island’s Republican supporters in Washington.

Study

Aranza, though, promised one thing — funding for the training of local workforce. OIA will even fund a study that will determine the make-up of the local workforce.

Knight suggested that OIA widen the scope of the study by including the whole Micronesian region since if the U.S. immigration law would be applied here, the Northern Marianas businessmen would be forced to recruit people from nearby Micronesian islands. “If we do that, this would create a regional crisis because if we go there to recruit their best and brightest, who will look after their economy?” she asked.

Richard Pierce, executive director of Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association, questioned Aranza why the OIA and Interior officials have continuously ignored the reforms carried out by the garment industry.

“We would like to see some credit for what we’re doing. When is OIA going to give credit for the positive steps we have taken? The garment industry is tired of being dismissed by OIA,” he said. The garment industry, according to Pierce, has been conducting training among its workers and strictly monitoring the condition in various factories.

As far as Sablan is concerned, everything is still uncertain. “It is up to him (Aranza) to prove that he will try to correct what has happened. After all, the issues that they have raised against us are just a rehash of the past,” he added.

With a new man at the helm, the issue on whether OIA would finally have good relations with the CNMI remains to be seen. In the meantime, both parties agreed on one thing — to continuously disagree on the fundamental issue of a federal takeover.

“It is like a marriage encounter. We need to talk about our differences first before we can move forward and discuss anything positive about the future,” said Knight.